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"One of the main tasks for human reason is to make the universe we live in understandable to ourselves. This is the task of science. There are two different components of about equal importance in this enterprise. The first is poetic inventiveness ..."
– Karl Popper
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Monthly Archives: January 2011
Gunter Wachterhauser on CR and the origin of life on earth
In this paper Gunther Wachterhauser tells a fascinating story of the evolution of ideas about the nature of living matter, and how living things evolved, with a highly speculative theory about the very beginning of life on earth. That is the background … Continue reading
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Scientism vs Liberalism
In his book, “The Counter-Revolution of Science”, Hayek argued against scientism – attempts by the social sciences to ape the methods of the natural sciences by ignoring the subjectivity of economic value. I will apply these ideas to criticise of some current ideas that the government should use force to make people happier. Continue reading
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Yvor Winters on line
Yvor Winters (1900-1968) combined the careers of poet, critic, teacher and scholar but he was a marginal figure, sometimes lumped with the New Critics, sometimes dismissed as a simple-minded moralist. Biographical notes here. At the height of his powers he … Continue reading
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Philosophy of biology vs philosophy of physics
Bartley wrote another long paper (more than 10,000 words) to demonstrate how the dominant philosophy of physics is refuted by biology (and is defective as the philosophy of physics). The paper begins with an exchange between Popper and a leading physicist, … Continue reading
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Popper and Wittgenstein as schoolteachers
Some time ago in this essay on the three world theory and literary criticism I suggested that there was a degree of similarity in at least one of the problems confronted by Popper and Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein, like Popper and Piaget, … Continue reading
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de Jasay vs Popper on social engineering
Anthony de Jasay is one of my favorite commentators, he is a libertarian or very strong liberal and a regular columnist even in his old age. A search reveals that he is Hungarian born and spent time in both Austria … Continue reading
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